Donald Trump’s Politics of Plunder

To understand the vagaries of power in Washington, pay attention to where the powerful congregate. When Teddy Roosevelt was ascending, he could be found at the Metropolitan Club, a blue-blood hangout where he and his fellow-members planned the Spanish-American War. The more literary-minded might prefer the Cosmos Club, which hangs up portraits of members who win the Nobel Prize. (Thirty-six, so far.) The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg enjoyed the City Tavern Club, a modest, threadbare place with monthly dues on the order of two hundred dollars. The club closed last year, for lack of funds.

When Donald Trump returned to the White House this winter, members of his circle set about creating an establishment that might suit their preferences. The President’s oldest son, Don, Jr., was among the founders of a members-only society called the Executive Branch, open by invitation to those who can pay initiation fees of as much as half a million dollars. One founding member, David Sacks, a Silicon Valley tycoon who serves as the Administration’s A.I. and crypto czar, explained, “We wanted to create something new, hipper, and Trump-aligned.” The location has yet to be announced, but Sacks promised that the club would provide like-minded members with a sanctuary, where they wouldn’t have to encounter a “fake-news reporter” or anyone else “we don’t know and we don’t trust.”

The Executive Branch, which has a coat of arms that combines a bald eagle with a monogram of the club’s initials, offers a home to those who stand astride the MAGA ledger—the people who both fund Trump’s initiatives and profit from them. A number of the co-owners are, like Don, Jr., known less for their achievements in business than for their proximity to Trump. They include the cryptocurrency entrepreneurs Zach and Alex Witkoff, whose father, Steve, is Trump’s Middle East envoy, and Omeed Malik, a founder of 1789 Capital, a venture-capital firm that named Don, Jr., as a partner. (In April, Malik was appointed to the board of the government-backed mortgage firm Fannie Mae.)

Last month, Sacks co-hosted a launch party at the Occidental, a venerable restaurant near the White House where political operatives once worked to defuse the Cuban missile crisis over crab cakes and pork chops. The place was done up in Trump’s customary mode, evoking a pricey wedding on the Jersey shore: caviar bumps for arriving guests, designated spaces for V.I.P.s and V.V.I.P.s, and seafood arrayed on a table-size ice sculpture topped with the club’s initials.

The guest list included an extraordinary range of officials from the new Administration. Lobbyists from the pharmaceutical and finance industries were pleased to find themselves in close quarters with the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the director of National Intelligence, as well as the chairs of the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. One attendee later described it as an improvement over the scene at the Trump International Hotel, which was popular during the first term. “That was open,” the guest told me. “You could find Rudy”—Giuliani—“pretty tipsy on any given night, holding court in the lobby.” The new club has higher barriers to entry. “It